Criticism of Sony during the breach was for several reasons: the delay between discovering the problem and notifying customers, Stringer's lack of public comment (in stark contrast to Kazuo Hirai's polite remorse), the lack of meaningful updates as to when service would be restored, the seeming confusion over exactly what information had or had not been stolen from PSN's or Sony Online Entertainment's servers, and finally, some customers have even been complaining about the free PSN content offered by Sony to make amends for the issues.

Stringer also explained that the company was still assessing the financial damage of the hack.

"There's a charge for the system being down [...] a charge for identity theft insurance," he said. "The charges mount up, but they don't add up to a number we can quantify just yet." According to Reuters, one expert estimates the costs could reach as high as $2 billion.

Stringer's outburst isn't likely to win him many friends amongst the customer base after a month of frustration. His annoyance at the critics is perhaps justifiable after a month of one of the most high-profile PR disasters the company has ever suffered, but the critics themselves probably aren't going to see it that way.